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Across the UK, school pupils have been shouting out the phrase “sixseven” during classes in the latest meme-based craze to sweep across classrooms.

Whereas some teachers have chosen to stoically ignore the phenomenon, others have accepted it. Five educators explain how they’re coping.

‘I thought I had said something rude’

Earlier in September, I had been addressing my eleventh grade tutor group about preparing for their secondary school examinations in June. It escapes me exactly what it was in relation to, but I said words similar to “ … if you’re working to results six, seven …” and the whole class started chuckling. It took me entirely unexpectedly.

My first thought was that I might have delivered an allusion to an inappropriate topic, or that they’d heard a quality in my pronunciation that appeared amusing. A bit annoyed – but truly interested and conscious that they weren’t mean – I persuaded them to elaborate. To be honest, the explanation they then gave didn’t make much difference – I remained with minimal understanding.

What possibly rendered it particularly humorous was the weighing-up movement I had performed during speaking. Subsequently I found out that this typically pairs with ““67”: I meant it to assist in expressing the act of me verbalizing thoughts.

With the aim of kill it off I try to reference it as frequently as I can. No approach diminishes a craze like this more effectively than an adult attempting to get involved.

‘If you give oxygen to it, then it becomes an inferno’

Knowing about it helps so that you can prevent just accidentally making remarks like “for example, there existed 6, 7 million people without work in Germany in 1933”. When the digit pairing is unpreventable, possessing a rock-solid school behaviour policy and expectations on pupil behavior really helps, as you can deal with it as you would any different interruption, but I haven’t actually been required to take that action. Rules are important, but if pupils embrace what the school is doing, they’ll be more focused by the online trends (at least in lesson time).

With 67, I haven’t sacrificed any instructional minutes, aside from an infrequent raised eyebrow and commenting ““indeed, those are numerals, excellent”. If you give attention to it, it transforms into a blaze. I treat it in the equivalent fashion I would manage any other disturbance.

Previously existed the nine plus ten equals twenty-one trend a previous period, and there will no doubt be a new phenomenon subsequently. That’s children’s behavior. During my own growing up, it was imitating Kevin and Perry impersonations (admittedly away from the school environment).

Children are unforeseeable, and I think it’s the educator’s responsibility to react in a way that steers them in the direction of the path that will get them where they need to go, which, fingers crossed, is completing their studies with certificates as opposed to a conduct report lengthy for the use of arbitrary digits.

‘They want to feel a part of a group’

Young learners use it like a unifying phrase in the schoolyard: a student calls it and the remaining students reply to demonstrate they belong to the same group. It resembles a call-and-response or a football chant – an shared vocabulary they possess. In my view it has any specific meaning to them; they merely recognize it’s a thing to say. Whatever the current trend is, they seek to be included in it.

It’s banned in my learning environment, nevertheless – it’s a warning if they call it out – just like any other verbal interruption is. It’s especially challenging in maths lessons. But my pupils at year 5 are pre-teens, so they’re relatively compliant with the rules, whereas I appreciate that at teen education it could be a different matter.

I have served as a teacher for fifteen years, and these crazes last for three or four weeks. This phenomenon will die out in the near future – they always do, especially once their junior family members begin using it and it stops being cool. Afterward they shall be engaged with the next thing.

‘Sometimes joining the laughter is necessary’

I first detected it in August, while teaching English at a language institute. It was mainly young men repeating it. I taught students from twelve to eighteen and it was common with the less experienced learners. I didn’t understand what it was at the time, but I’m 24 years old and I understood it was simply an internet trend similar to when I attended classes.

These trends are constantly changing. ““Toilet meme” was a well-known trend during the period when I was at my educational institute, but it didn’t particularly exist as much in the educational setting. In contrast to “six-seven”, ““that particular meme” was never written on the whiteboard in instruction, so pupils were less prepared to pick up on it.

I simply disregard it, or sometimes I will smile with the students if I unintentionally utter it, trying to understand them and recognize that it’s merely youth culture. I believe they simply desire to experience that feeling of togetherness and friendship.

‘Playfully shouting it means I rarely hear it now’

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